Online services (such as online email and social media services) provide sharing of information through different types of communications, such as emails, posts, and messages. An item of information can be shared through online services. A document file, a contacts file, an image file, or any other type of file are examples of items of information. For instance, emails, posts, and messages can include an item of information as an attachment that can be shared through online services.
The sharing of information items (also known as content items) in conventional online services is usually through messages, emails, or posts. And, this can be problematic. One problem common to messages, emails, and posts are that such communications are initiated by a user or an automated process acting as a user. Such systems can have problems with efficiency and can be a tax on computer and network resources. For an information item to be shared through a communication (such as a message, email, or post), corresponding data must be communicated, negotiated, and processed to support the communication. Such operations use computer and network resources in addition to the resources used to share the content item associated with or attached to the communication. Further, because messages, emails, and posts usually rely on an end user to be initiated, such communications can be overlooked. Thus, consistency in sharing of items can be suspect as well.
In addition to usually being limited by human error and being a tax on computer and network resources, another problem common to messages, emails, and posts in online services is that the communications are sent or posted to a recipient without being selectively blocked or filtered by the sender or poster. The communications, if blocked or filtered, are usually restricted by the receiver of the communication. In other words, messages, emails, and posts are not usually selectively sent once such communications are commenced. This can be a serious problem in general because often sensitive items can be sent by accident. Also, such communications can be an unnecessary load on the communication link or channel if the content item has a large file size. For example, a common technical problem is that a file attachment is sent or posted and then such an attachment can overwhelm a link or channel. Also, even if there are safeguards implemented by a network to block, breakup, or filter large files, the safeguards use processing and network bandwidth resources that could have been preserved with outgoing filters that filter or block communications before the communications are sent over a network. There are some known outgoing filters for messages and emails that are beyond the scope of this application, but often such mechanisms use a significant amount of computer resources on the sender side of a communication.
In general, through conventional online services, sharing of content items is not direct in that the sharing relies on an additional function of the service such as a posting, messaging, or emailing function. However, there are known online services that allow for collaborative editing and reviewing of information items without relying on an email, message, or post for the most part. But, with such services, information items are not selectively shared between two or more accounts. For instance, the contents of the item shared through such systems are usually exposed similarly to each account that has access. For example, in a shared word processing document in a collaborative editing system, sensitive information is not restricted by the system itself. Also, returning to the problems already discussed, the initiation of sharing each individual item or file relies on the activation by one or more end users, and often relies on the back and forth communications of at least two end users. For example, a communication is usually required to invite a user to edit or review a content item in an online collaborative editing system, and then another communication is often required to accept the invite, thus further burdening the network.
Alternatively, but still problematic, a posting (such as through a blog or a social media site) provides a mechanism for a user of an account to share information to many users and accounts without initiating separate communications per receiving account. Thus, the resources used in negotiations between multiple accounts is avoided. However, an issue with posting information and items through blogs or social media sites is that such data is not selectively distributed beyond the selection of the group selected to receive the data. Known online services do not provide an automated way for selecting precisely what type of information is shared or migrated from one particular account to another particular account or a particular group of accounts. And, as mentioned, even when a post is used to communicate information to many different accounts an individual post still needs to be initiated by a user of the account making the post. Further, when such a limitation is overcome with automation in conventional systems, the automation of posting information still requires an individual to provide instructions to a service on how to provide the automated postings.
There are multiple methodologies to transfer files, datasets, and data subsets between accounts directly, but known techniques for direct sharing have not completely overcome the aforesaid problems with online services. Thus, improvement is needed.